After another day waiting for some winds not gusting up to gale force we finally leave Lochinver after lunch on Wednesday, with the promise of lightening winds as the day wears on. The forecast is for F5 or F6 from the south or south-west and  it promises to be a slog into a headwind all the way. Not normally something we look forward to, but our wives are on their way to Kyle…

As it turns out the wind rarely goes below 6 and is often up to near gale. We register some gusts across the deck of 34kts …that’s definitely a gale. The seas are short and steep as we suspected after a few days of SW winds and the headlands prove to be a little unpleasant. Heydays handles the confusion brilliantly with only a few waves bringing us almost to a standstill. We are hunkered down inside the sprayhood and keep warm and toasty while watching for the inevitable pot-buoys.

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The only other boat we see is a Cal Mac Ferry out of Ullapool, heading we presume for the so far invisible outer Hebrides.

Before we round Rubha Reidh headland we get some respite from the waves and make some soup and sandwiches for lunch. Even out here we mange some olive-oil drizzling!! With food comes a bit of sun and our first sighting of Skye in the distant gloom. As we turn due south the wind has eased and Heydays begins eating into the miles.

All of a sudden there is a splash beside us and soon a school of dolphins is accompanying Heydays south. They are playing in and out of our bow wave, sometimes diving beneath the boat and at others just leaping as if for the pure pleasure of a fast ride. So much has been written by sailors about dolphins and so many clichés pressed into action, but everyone of them is true. They truly are magnificent and lift our spirits for the rest of the day.

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In a while they tire of playing with us and head off, presumably in search of either faster boats or more fish or both. With the seas and wind easing steadily we take the inner route to Loch Gairloch past Longa Island and on to Badachro in the last of the evening light.

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We pick up a mooring buoy, still buzzing from our encounter with the dolphins, but decide on an early start and so sadly don’t go ashore this time, but as the sun sets and the long northern twilight takes over, we can’t help but be spell bound by the beauty of the Loch and the long dark shadows creeping over from the craggy mountains. We have a smidgeon of phone signal and a brief chat with Yee Tak and Chris who are getting slowly pickled in the bar of the Euston to Inverness sleeper as they speed North to Kyle…

With the promise of a hard slog south into an increasing wind, we decide for the easy option of drying Heydays out and paying attention to her bottom. The harbour master Mark, (who together with his mate Joseph and us as James and John make a remarkably holy bunch appropriate for a Sunday) directs us to the old slip at the far end of the harbour. With Heydays drying out in the sun we attract an unusual amount of attention from folk passing by until they realise we are there on purpose. Heydays’ bottom is still clean from her pressure wash in March and after quick scrub we are soon happily lying on our backs in weed painting her in two fetching shades of blue (left over tins of antifoul and a bargain lot from Essex).

The only option is then to have a walk round the loch and through the village…

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…and then return to the (happily more gender balanced) bar for early dinner while the tides rises again. As we are leaving a tightish spot, my (completely useless but expensive) Sealskinz glove is flicked into the water to be rescued by Tommy and Barbro (correct spelling…they are Swedish) who are passing. Once we are moored again they wander down and we end up sharing some wine and scotch for the rest of the evening. It turns out that they own a 47’ Malo (rather nice Swedish yacht) called Altaire and effectively live aboard for 8 months of the year. Originally from Sweden, they have retired to Italy for winter skiing and over-wintered their boat in Lochinver. They have cruised extensively around Norway, Shetland, Orkney and Scotland for many years but are now making their way home to Italy over the next few years.

Monday’s weather is no more favourable and we sit out a near gale in our snug berth while continuing to marvel at the stunning scenery…

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By evening though, things have calmed a little and Mount Suilivan is majestic behind the village…

Our non-sailing friends can skip the next bit, as the afternoon found us attending to a niggling electrical problem which has resulted in us running out of battery power too soon when we are sailing. We are running an Adverc battery management system and have been concerned for some time that it is not delivering sufficient charge to the domestic batteries. With the prospect of more anchoring we are also reluctant to have to keep running the engine. We completely re-map and check the electrical charging circuits and voltages which involves of course, delving into the very bowels of the boat lockers and engine room. We come up with a range of bothering voltages across the various terminals and….a wire in the wrong place. After much checking and rechecking we move the wire to where we think it should have been (somewhat defensively we know this pre-dates our ownership!). We get a much better set of voltages but a very hot charging diode. A call to Adverc and they ask us to send the data and promise to get back in the morning. By 9.30 they are talking us through the issues and giving us reassurance that although the alternator has been upgraded to much higher than the diode, we have no cause for concern. A final test of the circuits with every piece of gear switched on confirms that we have solved the problem… The final point to note is that Adverc were brilliant in terms of advice and guidance and said that they were here to help for as long as we have the equipment on board…(and I won’t end on a grump about my utterly useless Sealskinz!!!)

Having secured Heydays and given her a metaphorical pat on the back, we pop into the closest bar which turns out to be attached to the unfortunately named Culag Hotel…the photos don’t help. We notice the exclusively male clientele and then duck as a fight ensues. It is more like handbags at dawn but they send our plates flying before the bar-lady pulls them both apart. The young lad is sent away, the old drunk returns to his corner and told to be on his best behaviour. This does not apparently exclude loud and frequent profanities along the lines of “look at the **** state of that” in response to various acts appearing on Eurovision which is being played loud and avidly watched.

After a break to attend to matters domestic, John and James make journey once more to Orkney, via Caledonian sleeper, beautiful train ride to Thurso from Inverness and then ferry to Stromness. Great night in the bar on the sleeper chatting to an Aussie who tries to convince us that the wildlife there doesn’t always see you as dinner. For the first and only time we out-drink an Aussie….but probably due to the fact that he is still jet lagged.

The photo of the Old Man of Hoy is a cheat as it is taken from the ferry…more of that later, but the winds and down draft off the high mountains of Hoy give both of us serious pause for thought, as we are due to sail out past here tomorrow.

We both spend a slightly restless night trying to think through the passage from Stromness to the Western Isles round Cape Wrath in forecast strong winds. Wind in the rigging always sounds grim and at 4 in the morning, the howling and whistling does nothing to reassure. We meet up with Alan and his old fishing skipper colleague who are of the opinion that a Friday lunchtime depart would not be for them. That settles it! If old fishermen aren’t going for it, then neither will we. The forecast for a Friday night departure looks better(ish) with Windy (our favourite weather app) suggesting 5 and 6. But…our own instruments are showing steady winds of F6 with gusts up to 7. We have an afternoon snooze anyway as prep for a night sail. Again, sleep is fitful and finally we have a brain wave…what about a Saturday am departure? The winds should be lighter and although we will have foul tide for a while, it means we can do the whole trip in daylight. It helps to see the waves coming (sometimes)!

We sleep that evening much more soundly but 4am comes indecently rapidly. However, the northern morning sky is already light and we busy ourselves with the usual pre-passage prep. Getting off the berth is tricky, but we are almost like a well oiled machine and soon we are punching out into Hoy sound, sad to be leaving Stromness, but great to be on the move again.

The GPS and our nav instruments tell us that Hoy is there, but we see almost nothing of it as we are spat out with the last of the ebb tide through Hoy Mouth.  Completely surrounded by around two shades of grey it feels like we are living in a Rothko. We hope the similarity ends there, as his grey and black paintings were about death (after suffering an embolism), although some describe their desolate landscape-like qualities as an arctic wasteland…

Occasional patches of blue appear…”enough to make a sailor a pair of trousers” as my old grandma used to say, but we see nothing of the north coast of Scotland as we sail with a fresh breeze over the quarter towards Cape Wrath. We have had some conflicting advice about the cape. Some have suggested keeping close inside Duslic Rock, with others saying 3 miles off is the minimum. As it happens, the wind makes the decision for us by veering to a more southerly direction and it makes sense to plan the course for 3 miles off.

The cloud lifts after lunch and Cape Wrath appears faintly off the port bow. Its full majesty isn’t really apparent at first, but as we close the headland we start to get glimpses of the towering hills of the North West Highlands.

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As the visibility improved so the wind died and we turned properly south, motoring into an ever more calm sea. By 3pm our first decision…do we head for Kinlochbervie or make some further southing to Lochinver. The weather for the following few days is not brilliant for passages south and we have a date with our wives in Kyle of Lochalsh on Thursday…it would be nice to meet them. We press on in the knowledge that we have a couple of hours fair tide left in our favour and daylight until at least 10pm for the final approach. We settle in for another few hours and the hazy coastline slides past.

We approach the Point of Stoer with a foul current, rain squalls and increasing murk when a school of at least 7 dolphins pass close by making their way north with the tide.

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We can finally confirm that David Attenborough has not been guilty of ‘fake dolphins’ and it lifts our spirits as we start to make out Soyea Island and the entrance to Loch Inver. The beauty of this part of Scotland becomes truly apparent in a weak evening sun and we are moored by 9.30 as the only visiting yacht. It’s is not about the numbers, but we covered a distance of 98.3 NM in 16 hours and 45 minutes with an average speed of 5.9knots and a maximum of 10.9 knots…

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